The Hastings Museum got some free national advertising Sunday night on the History Channel docudrama series The Food That Built America.
Museum Director Teresa Kreutzer-Hodson was one of the experts in the episode titled Thirst Quenchers as she told the origin story of Kool-Aid, created in Hasting in 1927 by Edwin Perkins.
Each episode of the series tells the story of 2 or 3 of the biggest brands in the U-S in a given field such as frozen foods, soup, cheese, and beer. Celebrated this time along with Kool-Aid were Hi-C and Gatorade.
Since Kool-Aid was created in Hastings, the museum had a lot of information on it and Perkins. Kreutzer-Hodson even wrote a book about the drink, “Kool-Aid: Discover The Dream.”
Her scenes in Sunday night’s episode were filmed last September in New York City. In them, Kreutzer-Hodson recounted the successes and failures that led Perkins to come up with the best-selling powered drink mix in history.
Thirst Quenchers will air again twice next Sunday evening at 6:00 and midnight. It’s the next-to-last episode of the fourth season of the series.